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Ar­beits­blatt: Model sum­ma­ry

Eu­ro­pe in a nuts­hell

Foun­ding the Eu­ro­pean Union

The Eu­ro­pean Coal and Steel Com­mu­ni­ty was foun­ded in 1951 by six coun­tries: Bel­gi­um, Fran­ce, Ger­ma­ny, Italy, Lu­xem­bourg and the Nether­lands. They wan­ted to prevent fur­ther wars in Eu­ro­pe by poo­ling their coal and steel pro­duc­tion and thus con­trol­ling the raw ma­te­ri­als of wea­pons.

Soon after they de­ci­ded to in­crea­se their co­ope­ra­ti­on and set up the Eu­ro­pean Eco­no­mic Com­mu­ni­ty (EEC) in order to crea­te a com­mon mar­ket. This means that they could trade fre­e­ly across bor­ders wi­thout any obst­a­cles like bor­der checks and cust­oms.

When the EEC chan­ged its name to Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) the com­mu­ni­ty had in­crea­sed in mem­ber coun­tries and many areas of co­ope­ra­ti­on, like e.g. en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and in­fra­struc­tu­re. The end of the Cold War ended the se­pa­ra­ti­on bet­ween the eas­tern and wes­tern parts of Eu­ro­pe and many more, amongst them for­mer com­mu­nist coun­tries, have joi­ned the Eu­ro­pean Union. Me­anw­hi­le there are 28 mem­bers.

What the Eu­ro­pean Union does today

The idea of the EU is to make life ea­sier for us. Here are some ex­am­ples:

  • Peop­le are free to live, work and study in any of the EU mem­ber coun­tries. They don’t need passports when cros­sing na­tio­nal bor­ders wi­t­hin the union.
  • Many EU coun­tries use one sin­gle cur­ren­cy, the euro.
  • Poo­rer re­gi­ons wi­t­hin the EU and neigh­bou­ring coun­tries are pro­vi­ded with money and know-how to im­pro­ve their in­fra­struc­tu­re, schools, hos­pi­tals and so­ci­al pro­tec­tion.
  • Fur­ther­mo­re the EU works on en­vi­ron­men­tal and con­su­mer pro­tec­tion and im­pro­ves many more things of our daily lives.

How the Eu­ro­pean Union makes de­ci­si­ons

Laws in the Eu­ro­pean Union are made by three co­ope­ra­ting in­sti­tu­ti­ons: The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on, The Eu­ro­pean Par­li­a­ment and the Coun­cil. The Court of Jus­ti­ce makes sure that these laws re­spect “fun­da­men­tal laws” and that the mem­ber coun­tries stick to them.

The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on is made up of 28 Com­mis­sio­ners who work for the sake of the Union as a whole. They pro­po­se new EU laws. The Eu­ro­pean Par­li­a­ment re­pres­ents the peop­le of the EU. Its mem­bers are elec­ted every five years by all adult ci­ti­zens of the EU. The par­li­a­ment dis­cus­ses new laws to­ge­ther with the Coun­cil, where go­vern­ment mi­nis­ters of the mem­ber sta­tes meet re­gu­lar­ly. The Coun­cil is the re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on of the EU coun­tries. If the Par­li­a­ment and the Coun­cil find agree­ment on a new law it is pas­sed.

The ge­ne­ral po­li­ti­cal stra­te­gy of the EU is set in the Eu­ro­pean Coun­cil by the lea­ders of all mem­ber coun­tries.

 

 

Stun­de 2 Ar­beits­blatt Model sum­ma­ry her­un­ter­la­den [docx] [24 KB]
Stun­de 2 Ar­beits­blatt Model sum­ma­ry her­un­ter­la­den [pdf] [14 KB]

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